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Like many others he has rolled out the Sam Allardyce cliches ahead of Sunderland v Newcastle.

Owen states that ‘not losing, or conceding’ has always been how Allardyce approaches matches and of course each new management post.

Whenever people make these type of comments about the former Newcastle boss, it is almost as if they suggest that other new managers go in with the intention of leaving themselves wide open with some naive strategy.

As Newcastle fans know to their cost, Sam Allardyce simply produces tedious football that is based on a very defensive formation.

As Sunderland fans have already seen at West Brom in his first match in charge, it only took the Baggies one goal to win it as Sunderland only had two shots of their own on target.

Michael Owen’s assessment is obviously based on Allardyce’s negativity and he predicts a goalless draw, or a 1-0 win to Sunderland as the most likely outcome.

This overlooks the fact that the two clubs have two of the worst defences in the Premier League, only Norwich have conceded more than the 19 goals both Newcastle and Sunderland have leaked.

No doubt Sam Allardyce will try to bore us to death again today but any bet I would put on the match will definitely involve more than one goal being scored today.

Michael Owen talking to Colossus Bets:

“If Big Sam didn’t know that he had a big job on his hands at winless Sunderland, then he soon found out when they lost 1-0 at West Brom last week, for all that he thought they were very unfortunate to lose.

“Newcastle obviously found their goalscoring boots in that 6-2 home win over Norwich but I think it is safe to say Sunderland won’t be so open and accommodating here.

“Not losing, or conceding, has always been Sam Allardyce’s starting point in matches.

“I’m sure he will look to avoid a morale-sapping loss to Newcastle at all costs here.

“To be fair, Sunderland have dominated this fixture of late, winning the last five meetings, with a brace of 1-0 successes last season, and 0-0 and 1-0 are my idea of the most likely scorelines.”

About the author

Jackie Smithfield

Staff Writer - Doing my best to deliver news and views on Newcastle United, never quite recovered from the trauma of the ‘so close’ 1995/96 season.